The portuguese discover Antartica in the 15th century while circum navigating Africa

A forgotten bunch of frozen white men?

lol, but somewhat true.


I don't think there'd be much effect...Assume they sight it and are able to get back to South Africa in one piece...all we know is theres some frozen island, possibly a large one, way down south of Africa.
Its not much good to anyone though. Maybe the Terra Australus theories get a bit of extra support but this will quickly be dashed when someone sails along Australia's south coast and through the Indian and (south) Pacific oceans.
 
There's really not a lot on the mainlands. Basically, the resources are seals and whales, neither of which are really necessary to the Portugese.

Knowledge might butterfly sealing and whaling industries though, causing them to occur somewhat earlier. Which might lead to species depletion earlier. Which would then have effects on the early new England of the first have of the 19th century. Perhaps extractive expeditions would be in decline with the supplies, the volumes smaller and more expensive, more substitution, earlier manufacturing in some areas, but overall less wealth. An earlier, but more modest industrial revolution, with the north more economically subordinate to the southern states?
 

Lusitania

Donor
What in pray tell where we going to do with more ice and snow, we had already discovered Canada and wrote on a rock "Cà Nada" which means there is nothing here we want. They could not even find a rock to write a warning so thank god we never did.

Serriously Portugal establish an empire that in its time was as large as any other, but due to small home base and enemies galore when down in history as loosing the largest empire ever. So what economic value would it server.

As for whalling, it was allive and well in the Artic off Labrador and Newfoundland so there was no need to go to Antactica not yet. Europeans only went there when the whales in the Artic and Atlantic were almost hunted to extinction.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
What in pray tell where we going to do with more ice and snow, we had already discovered Canada and wrote on a rock "Cà Nada" which means there is nothing here we want. They could not even find a rock to write a warning so thank god we never did.

Cute; this is a mythical folk etymology, Canada comes from Kanata (and is written Kanada in Cartier's oddly breton-accented french writings), which means village in iroquoian languages, apparently his interpreter mistook his "where are we?" to mean specifically where (Stadacone) and not, yno, the name they gave the country.

Also I vote for explorersicles, too.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Cute; this is a mythical folk etymology, Canada comes from Kanata (and is written Kanada in Cartier's oddly breton-accented french writings), which means village in iroquoian languages, apparently his interpreter mistook his "where are we?" to mean specifically where (Stadacone) and not, yno, the name they gave the country.

Also I vote for explorersicles, too.

Actually they use to teach that in Portuguese history back in Portugal, I doubt they still do so. I hear the same folk tale of this village in Upper Canada. As for me I will stick to what my teachers taught me.:)
 
Actually they use to teach that in Portuguese history back in Portugal, I doubt they still do so. I hear the same folk tale of this village in Upper Canada. As for me I will stick to what my teachers taught me.:)

Yeah and in Swedish history classes they taught us that the American civil war was only about slavery.

School isn't always right.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
I actually found Lusitania's joke rather funny.

In the 1930s, Brown University Professor Edmund de la Barre determined that some inscribed rocks in Narragansett Bay and Fall River were actually written in Portuguese (previous suggestions had included Phoenician, "Runic", and Cherokee) and attested to Portuguese explorations of New England that had actually predated those of Hudson, Verrazzano, and Cabot; for this he was knighted by the Portuguese government.
 

Lusitania

Donor
I actually found Lusitania's joke rather funny.

In the 1930s, Brown University Professor Edmund de la Barre determined that some inscribed rocks in Narragansett Bay and Fall River were actually written in Portuguese (previous suggestions had included Phoenician, "Runic", and Cherokee) and attested to Portuguese explorations of New England that had actually predated those of Hudson, Verrazzano, and Cabot; for this he was knighted by the Portuguese government.

So there was truth to the teachers story after all, wait till I tell my Canadian History teachers this one. As for Charl's comment about Swedish's American Hostory leason they sort of had it right (simplified version). :D:D;)
 
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